News Updates

As part of the Oil & Water Don’t Mix campaign, MEC needs your help today to ramp up pressure on Gov. Snyder to keep oil out of the Great Lakes. Please add your name to our letter, and send an email to your friends or your organization’s members to encourage them to sign on.

Every day oil pipelines at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac transport 23 million gallons of oil. A spill here, in the heart of the Great Lakes, would be catastrophic.

MEC and several other groups have been urging the governor to use his state authority under the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act—and fulfill his responsibility to residents—by creating a public process to protect the Great Lakes from an oil spill.

Instead, the governor has created a Petroleum Pipeline Task Force that meets behind closed doors to decide what action, if any, the state will take.

On Monday, MEC and other leading groups in this effort will present to the task force. We will make the case that the state should require Enbridge to file a conveyance application under the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act and begin a public process to decide whether to authorize the continued presence of the oil pipelines on state-owned bottomlands in the Straits of Mackinac.
While we maintain that the closed-door task force process is not enough to satisfy the state’s public trust duty to address the risks these pipelines pose to the Great Lakes, we see this is an opportunity for our campaign to make our case to the administration.

Right now we need you to help us show the governor the growing public support for a transparent process and meaningful action. Please encourage your friends, family and colleagues to add their names to our letter calling on Gov. Snyder to stand up for our Great Lakes.